I wonder if we will have any scenes of ingenues running from houses. I can see it in the flashback, with some particularly lovely lady running away from Collinwood to Widows Hill. This is only wishful thinking at this point, but one scene I can envision taking place at night in the 1772 Collinwood.
As for what the runner said, could it be that Johnny/Barnabas is not recognizable while in some kind of transformed vampiric state? The show didn't really have the resources to change Frid's appearance very much (with the exception of when he aged rapidly) but so much more is possible for a motion picture.